MOBILE, Alabama -- For decades, the universal mantra of economic development officials has been the availability of a “trainable workforce,” but a post-recession economy and increasingly global marketplace is systematically redefining this Holy Grail of recruiting tools.

“When we say trainable now, what we mean is skilled, and not just basic skills. Those are expected. They’re pre-requisites,” said Troy Wayman, vice president of economic development for the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce and chairman of the Southwest Alabama Workforce Development Council.

The definition has evolved, he said, because the skill sets required – especially in the manufacturing sector – have changed dramatically.

“Manufacturing has changed so significantly over the past 20 years, that there are people we would’ve put in a job then that probably wouldn’t even come close to being qualified today,” Wayman said.

Industry dictates need, timeline

George Freeland, executive director of the Jackson County Economic Development Foundation, said the available workforce found in the six southern Mississippi counties plus Mobile County consists of about 400,000 people.

“There are always those who are un(employed) or underemployed who are looking to move up the employment ladder,” Freeland said.

Because of constant and flexible cooperation between industry and the 15-school community college system, Mississippi is a model for affordable or no-cost training, Freeland said.

This training ebbs and flows with changing industry needs, according to Anna Faye Kelley-Winders, spokesman for Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College.

Thanks to the 2004 Workforce Education Act, unemployment compensation revenue fund the programs, to the tune of anywhere from $15 million to $20 million a year spread out among the 15 colleges, depending on the economy, Kelly-Winders said.

This past year about $17 million was provided to the community college system from the fund, according to the Mississippi Department of Employment Security.

Industry with the greatest needs often choose to augment those funds.

For example, MGCCC this fall launched a two-year associate and specialist degree program for those wishing to gain high-tech energy industry skills. About 25 people are enrolled in the inaugural class, made possible in large part by the donation of $1 million in equipment for hands-on training by Mississippi Power Company.

The same scenario occurred when Northrop Grumman’s Unmanned Aerial Systems Center located in Moss Point in 2006, though that program is winding down and the plant is fully staffed with about 70 skilled workers.

And since the mid-1960s, the college has partnered with area shipbuilders – most notably Ingalls – to train apprentices. Kelley-Winders said that it’s typical for 250-300 people to graduate from the apprentice program each year, emerging as welders, pipefitters and electricians.

Local skills mean local jobs

Aside from the nuances of skilled trades and crafts, Wayman said a keener understanding of math, science and broader manufacturing and distribution processes are required today than even 10 years ago. Moreover, it’s often a simple issue of inexperience.

“We hear anecdotal evidence all the time about the high school graduates who did just fine in their math courses, but they need two hours training to learn how to read a tape measure. It’s the real-world skills, the application that’s lacking, and those are the gaps we’re trying to help bridge,” Wayman said.

And why, exactly, is it so important to identify and address such gaps?

Tony Hopper, projector coordinator and master trainer at the AIDT Martime Training Center in Mobile, Ala., operates a control panel in front of a plasma fabrication table Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012, at the facility in Mobile, Ala. (Mike Brantley/mbrantley@al.com)

“If the workers do not have the skills mentioned above, or are not trainable, the workers will be found in other locations. Where this usually happens is in the upper level jobs in engineering, multi-craft maintenance workers and management (rather than) in the hourly workforce,” said Ed Castile, executive director of the Alabama Industrial Development Training program.

And Wayman said there’s no doubt potential employees from Florida, Georgia and even Tennessee will be vie aggressively to edge out Mobile area and Mississippi candidates for the jobs materializing in the region over the next few years, but there is another advantage to keeping the workforce as local as possible.

“It can be very costly to pay for training and transport, so it’s far more cost-effective for (companies) to exhaust every resource to hire locally,” he said.